


Long Time Gone

by OtherCat



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Disturbing Themes, Dream Bubble, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-17
Updated: 2011-08-17
Packaged: 2017-10-22 17:14:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/240474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OtherCat/pseuds/OtherCat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Do you know what it is to sleep and never awaken? To no longer be exhausted by exertion, by anger, by fear or grief? Can you imagine a sleep so restful that even the worst and most painful memories have faded? Where the memories of your greatest joys are worn smooth and every tragedy is only a footnote to the story you shared with companions you admired and willingly followed into unimaginable horror?</p><p>Yeah, didn't think so.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Long Time Gone

Your bubble had not come into contact with any other bubble for a long time now.

The first few times your bubble had come into contact with another you were violently ejected and the very last time, it was you who did the ejecting. (The memory of why is fuzzy and indistinct to you now. It's been a very long time, but you remember that she was angry with you, so very angry and the worst part was that you knew everything she said was true.)

So the bubble drifted further and deeper, but you barely notice, drifting in lonely, hungry circles where you were never at fault. Eventually your bubble came to rest against another, solitary bubble. A bubble which if you had been able to see it from outside, might have looked milky and opaque, a thing of shifting layers and jagged cracks. (If indeed the bubble of a dream could have been said to have a physical appearance.) A bubble layered with memories tangled in light years and stars, an archive of memory crushed by the weight of centuries and ground down to diamond dust. You were no more aware of contact than you were of the lack of contact and your drifting mind continued to wander through your memories.

Do you know what it is to sleep and never awaken? To no longer be exhausted by exertion, by anger, by fear or grief? Can you imagine a sleep so restful that even the worst and most painful memories have faded? Where the memories of your greatest joys are worn smooth and every tragedy is only a footnote to the story you shared with companions you admired and willingly followed into unimaginable horror?

Of course not. You have never known what it is to finally rest because you have never been tired. You have never truly risked anything so you have never truly won anything. Nor have you ever experienced devotion or admiration, only their shadows, envy and need. You have never walked into a horror greater than your fantasies of violence and domination.

You are Eridan Ampora, and you have always lacked companionship. You have never been a companion to anyone, not even the one you wanted to have flushed feelings for. (Note the word "wanted." You are as innocent of truly flushed or pale feelings as an annelid. Your black and ashen feelings are too full of needy frustration to ever inspire the rivalry of a kismesis or the mediation of a auspistice.) Any who reach out to you, any who seek to rival you find they cannot compete with your ravenous hunger for attention. You are one who will always starve even when a feast has been set before you.

The bubble of your memories came to rest against mine and it was as if a blood sucking insect buzzed in my ear. I awakened from the memory of one of _his_ sermons to find you wandering through my bubble in confusion. My bubble is a tangle of corridors and bulkheads, street corners, alleys, back rooms. You called out the names of people you knew, not remembering that the owners of those names would have no reason to answer. You were frightened but not yet aware of my presence, though you knew that someone must be here. You remembered enough to know that this was a dream, and that you were dead.

Clutching the memory of a rifle, you demanded that I show myself. How your voice shook! I should not have been so pleased to frighten a child, but you wore the face and form of someone I despised, so the fear in your voice, the surprise when I did filled me with a burning, malicious joy.

"Sollux!" You said, even though you knew I was not, could not be Sollux. Your hands shook and you raised your rifle; I was an adult and you were a terrified child. I took your weapon from you, wrenching the memory into pieces.

You took a frightened step backward but I closed the distance between us. "Dualscar," I said, and slammed you against a bulkhead. You were pinned by the force of my mind, by the banked coals of my anger. "She told me how the Dolorosa died, Dualscar. She enjoyed telling me about it, though really, she was only talking to herself." (I remember her leaning against me, tracing the coupling tendrils that connected me to her ship, "the Sufferer's lusus is dead." She smiled cheerfully. "You and I are the only ones who care anymore. I wanted her to last longer. If you are very, very good I might let you avenge her. Say thank you.")

You stared at me in confused, dazed terror. Even with a planetary (or galactic) communication grid there will be shifts in the language due to time and distance, and even if there hadn't been any changes in the language, my speech would still be impaired by a mouthful of fangs too large for my jaw. (I knew you were not really Dualscar, that Dualscar was long dead but you were nearly enough like him that I didn't care, then.) You could barely understand me.

"I d-don't know what you're talking about," you said, your voice wavering with terror as much as from your accent. Then you bit your tongue trying not to make a sound when I sliced your cheek open with telekinetic force. Blood ran down your face like tears, as you struggled against invisible restraints.

"Of course you don't," I said. "Why would you bother to remember something so insignificant, Orphaner? She was just a heretic, a slave." I tightened the restraints and you writhed against the force of my mind, or tried to. You were not even able to draw the breath necessary to scream. My telekinetic grip on you sharpened, cutting through your clothes, slicing delicately into your flesh.

You could have rejected this dream and returned to your own bubble, but all you did was struggle in terrorhorrorrage. Your lips moved, forming the name "Sollux" again. Your eyes were wide and desperate, and you wanted to scream, but you couldn't.

I wanted you to suffer as much as the Signless had.

I wanted you to burn.

It is so, so easy to forget compassion, to forget pity. So much easier to take revenge.

"Helmsman," I said. I eased the pressure just enough for you to draw a few shallow breaths and touched the first cut I made. I drew _his_ sign with your blood on your forehead. You trembled when I touched you, when I forced you to stay still. Your eyes squeezed shut and you made a small, desperate noise. "Psiioniic," I whispered in your ear.

I kissed you then, a black desire to terrify you burning in my head, but for some reason I was overcome with a memory of the Dolorosa taking the Signless' angry face in her hands and kissing his forehead. He had always looked so stupidly startled when she did that, no matter how many times she did it. Sometimes he would smile and promise to shout less loudly. She would tell him not to make promises he was incapable of keeping. The bond between them was as close (the same somehow) as the bond between a child and their lusus. I saw her face and heard, _"is this what you really want to do?"_

No.

My anger and hatred went out like a candle and I pushed away from you. Disgust, shame and guilt washed up against me in waves. Tears stung my eyes and I let you fall to the deck in a heap. You stared up at me, pupils blown wide and dark, your breath coming in short, aching pants. You might have tried to say something then, but I pushed you away, back into your bubble and away from mine. I stared at the purple smear you left behind on the bulkhead for a very long time.

**Author's Note:**

> The tense this story wanted to be in drove me crazy by the way. But that's okay since Homestuck has recently rotted out my thinkpan and all I can think of is angst and apocafic.


End file.
